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Friday, August 24, 2012

Tyranid Aegis Defense Line and End of New Territories Campaign

The New Territories campaign at Gamers Sanctuary is now over. Looking back at our first campaign of 6th Edition it was a LOT of fun. Tons of different armies showed up and we played a lot of new people! Most learned a great grasp of the 6th Edition rules and saw how the game has changed.

The #1 thing that has punished me in 6th Edition so far has been flyers, so I attempted to curb that with an Aegis Defense Line. I wanted to get a Tyranid version of one and happened upon a post on the internets that guided me to the location of some sweet looking models. I purchased them from Dark Arts Miniatures and really like it. I will probably buy another set in the future.

It was pretty easy to paint (most Tyranid stuff is) and I dipped it in the usual manner. I took the extra gun from a Tyrannofex and put it on as the quad gun or lascannon; it could be either one.

How did it perform? Meh. It gives my dudes a 4+ cover save which is nice but I can't usually take the go to ground bonus because I'm fearless and can't go to ground. The Quad Gun was really the reason I brought it. It did... not very well. Strength 7 vs armor 12 flyers just ain't great. Perhaps next time I'll try the lascannon.

Overall in the campaign I did very well. I am not a serious business player by any means but I managed an 8-1 record with one loss to IG with Vendettas. I beat Grey Knights, IG, Eldar, Marines, Daemons, and Chaos Space Marine, I think. There are a few reasons that these victories came my way:

1) Flying Monstrous Creatures. A lot of people don't yet have the tools to deal with them. My Hive Tyrant with Devourers is a beastmonster. I think a lot more people will be getting skyfire weapons and a quad gun could really do some damage to a Hive Tyrant. No invulnerable save just RUINS them.

2) Psykers. I usually bring at least six psychic powers to the table and almost all are buffs of my own troops. This means you can't really deny them. Unless you have Runes of Warding or wolf pieces on your armor. More on that later.

3) Monstrous Creatures got better. They actually get cover now and smash is pretty sweet. Unless you're going up against melta bomb IG. More on that later.

4) Devourers are amazing.

Those worms eat your brain and make your dudes run away.

The main thing that was hurting me were the flyers. I really couldn't take them down. Even volume of fire (36 shots from Carnifexes) just didn't do it. Flying MCs don't have skyfire (really?) and their vector strike just isn't enough when they're strength 6.

I did manage a game vs Cerberus and his Eldar on Wednesday. He brought his Farseer with Runes of Warding. This really hurt my overall chances as I couldn't make all my dudes high toughness with FNP. I managed to get my flying Hive Tyrant in his backfield early and take some strength six shots at his farseer (allocating them with precision shot) and he failed some look out sirs... strength six would instakill him... and he made the 4+ invulns. I finally managed to run that unit off the board with devourers and then I could cast again.

If you can take melta bombs in any army you should do it. They wreck MCs really hardcore. Many are WS3 and no invulnerable save. Run up and hit it with your higher WS and then let it not have any save. Stupid guardsmen with melta bombs killed my tervigon in one turn.

Tyranid Devourers really surprised people. Each gun gets assault six shots on MCs, three on gants. On MCs they're going to be twin linked... so 12 strength 6 shots from a HT (BS3) and 12 from a Carnifex (BS3). A brood of three carnifexes is dumb but I love them so I take them. 36 strength six shots twin linked is a unit deleter.

Here is the 1750 point list I used this week. Add 100 for the Aegis Defense Line that basically did nothing.

New psychic hood rules are kinda still a bummer for my BA against bio buffing Tyranids and divination buffing Grey Knights. And yes fliers rule. At least one Stormraven has become an auto include for now.